Patriots-Jets game taking spotlight from the Eagles

BLOCKUS

Reality

October 20, 2004|By Gary Blockus Of The Morning Call

It's only Wednesday, but there's big excitement in the air. Everywhere you go, people are talking about it. Flip on ESPN, it's a mini-feature. Oh, but this is Eagles country, so for those of you blinded by the sparkling 5-0 start of your Philadelphia Eagles, we're not talking about Philadelphia's trip to Cleveland on Sunday.

A few degrees North of Philadelphia, the New York Jets are also 5-0. And on Sunday, they'll be visiting Foxboro, Mass. where the New England Patriots are also 5-0.

The Patriots survived a scare from Seattle last week, one in which a certain Seahawks wide receiver (hint: initials K.R) did more to lose the game than New England did to win.

And the Jets are coming off a game in which they were forced to rally from down 14-0 against a San Francisco team with one win.

This is an important game, indeed. Both teams are tied atop the AFC East standings and figure to stay at the top of the division the rest of the season. New England has won 17 straight regular-season games, tying a record set by Chicago during the 1933-34 seasons, and an NFL-record 20 straight counting last season's playoff victories.

The Jets have won their first five games for the first time in history. While not looking particularly sharp in wins over San Francisco and Buffalo the past two weeks, Chad Pennington and friends have gotten the job done, which is the bottom line in the NFL.

The Jets-Patriots game offers plenty of household names on offense with quarterback Tom Brady and running back Corey Dillon carrying the torch for New England, and counterparts Pennington and Curtis Martin doing likewise for the Jets. Martin, by the way, leads the NFL in rushing with 613 yards.

Despite how Philly fans feel, there is life outside the Eagles schedule, and on Sunday, the eyes of the NFL will be on the two other undefeated teams in the league.

Not guaranteed: The Eagles, Jets and Patriots are all 5-0, but no one is guaranteed a playoff spot just yet. The 2003 Minnesota Vikings started the season 6-0 but missed the playoffs. And both the 1999 Patriots and 2000 Jets started the season 4-0 only to fail reaching the postseason.

Not too often: Two unbeaten teams haven't met this deep into the season since Oct. 28, 1973 when Minnesota and the L.A. Rams were both 6-0.

Only two other times in NFL history have two teams in the same division started off 5-0: the 1934 Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions and the 1968 Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams.

Quotable: Herm Edwards, the Jets head coach, on the Jets' first five-game win streak to start a season:

"It's unbelievable. The biggest pressure of all is history. That's why it's so hard to make history, it's so difficult. That's what they fight every week. They do a good job of staying calm, finding ways to win games."

When Edwards played in Philadelphia, the 1981 Eagles started the season 6-0.

Daunting Daunte: Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper set an NFL record last week when he threw five touchdown passes for the third time this season. That's the third time in five game. That's scary.

Heart attack Cats: The Jacksonville Jaguars (4-2) have lived by the last-minute-hero theory this season.

They have made game-winning plays in the last 45 seconds of three games this season, including last week's 22-16 win over Kansas City when Byron Leftwich completed a 14-yard touchdown pass to Cortez Hankton with exactly 45 seconds to go. The TD pass not only provided a win, it ended a two-game losing streak.

The boys are back in town: Former Whitehall High star Matt Millen and former Lehigh U. football coach Kevin Higgins will be visiting Giants Stadium on Sunday when the Detroit Lions take on the 4-1 New York Giants, who are coming off a bye week.

But that may be a good thing for the Lions. New York is 3-12 in the week following the bye, and is 1-7 following its last eight bye weeks.

Detroit is 3-2 and fighting for the NFC North's top spot despite losing to division rival Green Bay last week.

The Giants are led by Tiki Barber, who is averaging a career-best 6.0 yards a carry.

Poor, poor pitiful them: The San Francisco 49ers (1-5) and the Miami Dolphins (0-6) are the only teams in the league to be in the minus column of the turnover ratio in every game this season.